ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – The College of Saint Benedict swim and dive team wrapped up the 2021 portion of its competition schedule with an impressive three-day showing at the Rochester Invite.
Over the course of the weekend, the Bennies recorded 36 career-best times or marks to go along with 31 season-best times or marks, as well as handful of top-10 times in program history.
Leading the way for Saint Benedict over the weekend were Ana Birklid and Jessica Milstroh. The duo combined for two school records, three individual times in the top 10 in program history and a trio of relays that recorded top-10 times in CSB history. For their performances over the weekend, Birklid and Milstroh are the CSB Athletes of the Week.
Birklid started the weekend in Rochester with a school record Friday evening, and ended the weekend the same way Sunday night. Friday she broke her own 200 IM record, swimming a four-tenths of a second career-best time of 2:09.30 to finish in fifth. Sunday, she broke the 100 IM record she set just a few minutes ago as she finished with a two-second personal-best time of 1:00.80. She finished fifth in the race. Birklid also finished in the top 10 in both the 200 back and 200 free, and recorded season-best times in both races.
Milstroh recorded a trio of top-10 times in program history over the weekend, including the second-best time in CSB history in the 100 IM. Her 10
th-place time of 1:01.92 bettered the previous record, but landed her in second all-time behind Birklid. On Friday, Milstroh broke one minute in the 100 fly for the first time in her career, finishing the prelims in 59.99 seconds, the fifth-best time in program history. She took 20
th in the finals in 1:00.32. She also recorded the ninth-best 100 breaststroke time in CSB history, finishing 17
th in the event in 1:09.02.
The duo also teamed in three different relays to record top-10 times in program history. On Saturday, they were a part of the third-fastest 200 freestyle relay team in Bennie history when they teamed up with Jocie Larson and Riley Engle to finish in 1:37.73. That marked the first top-10 time in the event since the school record was set in 2016. Birklid and Milstroh were also part of the seventh-best 200 medley relay in program history (1:49.83) and the eighth-fastest 400 medley relay time in CSB history (4:08.85).
Birklid, Milstroh and their teammates head to Hawaii for their annual training trip over New Year’s, and return to competition Saturday, Jan. 8, in Collegeville for the SJU Invite.
